An Alternative to “Finding Your Purpose”
My purpose is to tell you to stop searching so hard for yours 😐
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If another article even mentions that it’ll help me find my “life purpose,” I might throw up.
And then I’ll go read it three times. Because of course I will.
I spend way too much time thinking about purpose, meaning, and how I should endeavor to spend my short time on this planet. (Probably more time thinking than doing, if I’m honest.)
But through all the journaling, reading, podcast-devouring, and navel-gazing, I feel like I’ve hit on something that feels true. It’s a principle I began to follow years ago in small ways without fully understanding it. But now, I want to follow it every moment of every day for the rest of my life.
And it’s this: Stop worrying about some overarching life purpose. Instead, focus on alignment.
How a swing dancing convention changed my life
It was 2014. I was finally walking to my car after another long day at my first big-girl job.
A college buddy and I were catching up over text when she dropped the bomb. “Oh, and I’m going to this big swing dancing convention! Excited about that.”
I stopped right there in the parking lot.
A swing dancing convention? And she hadn’t told me??
We were both avid dancers at the time. But a whole convention dedicated to dancers-I hadn’t even known something like that existed. My heart was pounding. It was the single greatest event I could imagine.
A quick Google search on my tiny smart phone revealed that the event was only a month away. And that meant all tickets were at their highest price.
Despair! Even if I splurged, I’d have to somehow pay for both a hotel room and gas for the six-hour trip. I was a new grad with my requisite mountain of student loans. Big expenses were out of the question.
